The idea of the Perennial Philosophy of Aldous Huxley leads one to the idea that God is too big for any one religion. How is it that sometimes people outgrow their religion of childhood? James Fowler, among others, has mapped out a model of spiritual development. Osho says that a person cannot enter into a spiritual life until he/she rebels against childish religious beliefs. Notes On A Spiritual Life intends to explore deeper understandings of an authentic spiritual life.

Spirituality quotes

Saturday, January 13, 2018

Loneliness is overcome by sharing

R.D. Laing, the British Psychiatrist, wrote in his book, Politics of Experience, that I can experience my own experience, but I can never experience your experience. The closest I can come to you is to experience my observing you experiencing your own experience.

Read that again. Stay with it. It's profound.

According to A Course In Miracles, we humans have decided to separate from the Oneness and form our own bodies. In doing so we made a sacrifice.

Recent psychological studies report that the biggest psychological problem in the United States is loneliness.

As I was reading about this finding, it made me laugh. Really? Loneliness? What made me laugh is the naming of this as a psychological problem which, undoubtedly it is, for which one of us has not experienced loneliness even in a crowded room, even in our committed long term relationships? What made me laugh is the lack of recognition that this, at its fundamental base, is a spiritual problem. The psychological aspect is only symptomatic at the surface, but fails to get to the bottom of things.

And so the problem of loneliness is a problem of the path of the ego. Rather than take the path of the spirit we have chosen the path of the ego which has taken us down the dark dead-end road to loneliness.

The good news is that things don't have to be this way. We can change course and embark on the path of the spirit and leave the path of the ego.

What does this change of course look like? It looks like forgiveness and love instead of blame and greed. It is about sharing instead of clinging and protecting.